It had been nearly five months since he had been released from the hospital, but Graham still hadn't completely settled back into his civilian life. He was back at his job, he would hang out with friends, he could do what he liked... yet it just felt like something was missing.

And Graham knew perfectly well what that something was, but he also knew only danger would follow if he interacted with Carmen.

He shook himself out of his thoughts as the introduction music of a Midsummer Night's Dream began to play. It was a show he had lit dozens of times before, so his thoughts started to wander as his hands slid across the faders on autopilot.

Suddenly he was jolted back to reality about a quarter through the show as the wrong music track played. It was the music for the finale.

"Uh," Graham pressed a button on his headset that allowed him to communicate with the other lighting techs. "Is something wrong?"

He assumed it was probably just a newbie mistake, perhaps someone still learning their cues. But he was met with only static from the headset. And, a few seconds later, the stage lights went out, leaving the opera hall in pitch blackness. The lights in the fader room shut off as well.

"What in the world...?" Graham flipped a switch that should have overridden any other settings and turned on all the lights. Nothing happened, and he tried the headset again. "Mr. Elwood?"

Static.

Graham tried a few more times, but to no avail. There was a knock on the door, and a muffled voice called, "Graham? Are you in here?"

Graham recognized the voice. It was one of his electrician friends, Jake. He clicked on the dim flashlight that all backstage crew members kept on their belt and opened the door.

"Jake, mate, what's happening?" Graham wanted to know.

"I have no idea," Jake replied. "Before the wrong track played and the lights went out, the communication headsets stopped working. Mr. Elwood set me to find the head stage manager and let her know, but then everything went dark and I figured maybe you would know something about that."

"Unfortunately not," Graham shook his head. "I've tried to turn the lights back on and I even tried overriding the whole system, but nothing's working."

"Hmm," Jake sounded puzzled. "Well, do you mind helping me find the head stage manager? I don't know my way around the opera house as well as you do, and the darkness certainly isn't helping."

Graham hesitated. "I probably shouldn't desert my post," he replied.

"Right now, no one is at their post," Jake countered. "Everyone's running around trying to figure out what in the world is going on. You won't get in trouble, trust me."

"If you say so," Graham said doubtfully. But he decided to go with Jake. They walked briskly through the corridors, their flashlights casting a dim glow on their surroundings.

Graham suddenly felt an instinctive sense of danger and stopped in his tracks. He whipped his head around and caught sight of a flash of orange dashing around a corner.

"Uh, Jake, do you mind going on without me?" Graham said to his coworker, searching for a believable excuse to go after the orange flash. "There's one more thing I think I can try to get the lights back on."

"Sure. I still don't know how to find the head stage manager, though." Jake frowned.

Graham pointed further down the hallway. "The green room should be six doors down on your right. It's where the cast and crew of the show hang out while they're off-duty. Someone there should know how to get you to the head stage manager."

"Thanks, mate," Jake replied, filing the directions away in his head. "Good luck with the lights."

Graham nodded. "It might not work, but it's worth a try," he said. He felt slightly guilty for lying to his coworker, though not as guilty as he probably should have. It was for his own safety, after all.

Graham turned around and set off in the direction he had seen the orange flash heading. He knew exactly who it was that he was following, but what Graham couldn't figure out was what Tigress was doing at the Sydney Opera House.

Carmen had said that there were still a few operatives on the loose, so maybe Tigress was one of them. But what was there at the opera house to steal? And why here, of all places?

He heard a whoosh and dropped to the ground as a dagger smashed into the wall behind him.

"Looking for someone?" a voice said, amused. Graham looked up to see Tigress' cat-eye mask glowing eerily in the dark.

"Yes, actually," Graham challenged her. He wished he had his crackle rod or some sort of weapon. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question, Crackle." Tigress said, her voice was full of scorn. "You shouldn't be here. You should have stayed with V.I.L.E."

"As far as I've heard, I'd be in prison right now if I had stayed." Graham retorted. "Locked up with the rest of the V.I.L.E. operatives. Well, excluding you, apparently."

Tigress smirked. "There's a lot you don't know, Crackle," she said ominously. Her unusual manner sent a chill down Graham's spine. Tigress had never been creepy, just sarcastic and arrogant. What was with this sudden sinisterness?

"I'm not Crackle. My name is Graham." he asserted.

Tigress laughed derisively. "You might not be Crackle anymore, but you're certainly not an innocent civilian," she told him. "Once a villain, always a villain."

Graham took a step back from her. A small part of him still feared this was the case, but he then remembered Carmen's words. "It's never too late to change," he repeated, her voice echoing in his mind.

Tigress clucked her tongue. "True, you have changed," she agreed. "Crackle would have never betrayed V.I.L.E."

Graham set his mouth in a thin line. "Like I said, I'm not Crackle. Not anymore."

"And it's all because of Black Sheep," Tigress shook her head in irritation and contempt. "One betrayal led to another. Well, you know what V.I.L.E. does to traitors."

Her glowing cat-eye mask flickered.

"We take their lives."

Tigress leaped forward with a determined growl, but Graham rolled under the attack. His heart raced with fear. He knew he was better at combat than Tigress, but the hallway was dark, and he was unarmed and out of practice. Tigress launched more blindingly fast attacks, but Graham was faster. He used Tigress' momentum against her and yanked the operative forward, causing her to slam into the wall. She snarled in anger and struck out with her claw-gloves, catching him in the shoulder. He jumped backwards with a sharp intake of breath. Fiery pain burned in his arm, and he clenched his teeth.

Tigress aimed a flurry of lightning fast strikes at him. "Backstabber!" she hissed, her fury fueling the attack. "Turncoat! Coward!"

Graham barely managed to avoid the blows. He knew he couldn't hold off Tigress for long, so he had better end this fast as quickly as possible.

As she drew in air to growl another insult, Graham's foot flickered out in a swift and powerful kick to the V.I.L.E. operative's stomach. She skidded backwards with a gasp as the air was forced out of her. Graham lunged forwards and directed a second kick at her solar plexus.

The solar plexus is a bundle of nerves at the pit of the stomach that, when hit by sufficient force, sends off a bunch of nerve signals to nearby organs. One of those organs is the diaphragm, which controls breathing. The impact would cause the diaphragm to spasm and make breathing extremely difficult.

In summary, a blow like that caused extreme pain and misery.

Graham (well, Crackle at the time) had only been struck in the solar plexus once before in Coach Brunt's hand to hand combat class, but it had literally felt like he was dying. He had remained on the ground, stunned and gasping for air, for a solid ten minutes. Even after he was able to breathe normally, he didn't want to move due to the burning sensation in his gut, which didn't subside until hours later.

"Forget about protecting the face," he had said to Black Sheep afterwards as they were walking to class one day. "It should be 'protect the solar plexus at all costs or you will feel like you are about to die.'"

Black Sheep only laughed. "You're such a delicate flower, Crackle," she snorted. "It can't hurt that bad."

"Just you wait," he replied darkly. "If you ever get hit in the solar plexus, you'll understand."

It was because of this memory that Graham winced in spite of himself as Tigress collapsed to the ground. He knew how painful a blow like that was, but it was necessary. She had been trying to kill him, after all.

He stared at her, unsure what to do. Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to think before a voice sounded from around the corner.